"We're very close to our minimum target, so I think we're past the tipping point of whether this'll happen — it will, which is really, really exciting," Ms Papacosta said.

"But now the pressure is on to make sure we get it right, to make sure we are a national body, to make sure we represent the whole of Australia."

Australia's, at times, fractured fishing industry has long recognised it needed a clearer, united voice to speak to government and consumers.

Austral Fisheries chief executive officer David Carter said, with the Federal Government putting up half a million dollars, it presented a "generational opportunity" to unite all sectors of the seafood industry.

Mr Carter said fragmentation, most notably in the long-running debate on marine parks, fallout over the super-trawler, and other "petty skirmishes", had unfairly diminished the industry's reputation.

"Politicians prefer to deal with a single voice and there's been enough issues presented to industry in recent years that hopefully are a catalyst for making that single voice possible," he said.

"We've got an immense amount to be proud of and an organisation that can tell that story is really very valuable."

Mr Carter nominated country-of-origin labelling as an area of policy that demanded attention.

"It was a national campaign. It involved the investment of the catchers, post-harvest and the retailers in promoting Australian prawn, wild catch and aquaculture, to the prawn-eating consumers of Australia," Mr Betzel said.

Mr Betzel said the post-harvest sector had as much at stake in fisheries management policy as the fishing sector had in the way in which product was marketed and sold to consumers.

"Post-harvest is as reliant as anybody else in the catching sector on the availability and sustainability of this wonderful resource … and I believe this is as good a position as we've ever been in terms of forming a national body for our industry."

Veronica Papacosta said the implementation group had turned its attention to the structure and constitution of the new national peak body.

The second-generation seafood retailer said opening up membership to individual businesses, rather than only industry associations, was critical to attracting new voices.

"So, participation is the key and we need to look at ways to allow people, not to take time off their boats or have to spend three days in a conference to get their voice across, that's just not realistic for our industry," she said.

"We need to come up with a way of getting all those amazing ideas into a funnel that leads up to that national voice; it's really the most important thing we can do right now."